Officials Seek Resignations of 4 Hospital Board Members

Top Prince George's officials yesterday requested the resignations of four members of the board that runs the county hospital system, a shake-up that could give elected county leaders greater say over hospital operations.

The request was made during a closed session of the board of Dimensions Healthcare System, the nonprofit company that runs the troubled hospital network, and was confirmed by James Keary, a spokesman for County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D). Keary said the 11-member board tabled the request.

"The board's operations have been grossly mismanaged," Keary said. "They have had an inability to properly run a hospital and look out for the public's assets."

The move was the latest development in the saga of the financially ailing system, which serves 180,000 patients each year, many of them poor and uninsured. The system encompasses Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly, Laurel Regional Hospital and three other county health facilities.

The county has two representatives on the Dimensions board: Johnson's chief of staff, Michael D. Herman, and County Council Chairman Camille Exum (D-Seat Pleasant).

Under the proposal, board Chairman Calvin Brown would step down by June 25, as would three other board members: the chairmen of the Cheverly and Laurel hospital boards and the representative of the Prince George's County Medical Society.

The remaining board members would select members of the public as replacements. The shake-up would require the rewriting of the company's bylaws.

One of the four board members targeted, George Bone, called Keary's comments about management "both incorrect and downright offensive."

"The core of everything is indigent care and who is responsible for indigent care," Bone said. "Until we come to grips with that core issue, who is on the board is of little importance."

The proposal was criticized by a county delegate who unsuccessfully led an effort in Annapolis in the winter to devise a deal to have the county and the state share the costs of a long-term solution to the hospital system's troubles.

"I think this is an outrageous power play on behalf of the County Council and the county executive, and it's meant to derail any serious attempt to come up with a long-term solution and to continue their domination of the hospital," said Del. Doyle L. Niemann (D-Prince George's).

Niemann said he thought the move, if successful, would "doom" chances of reaching an agreement with state lawmakers and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) next year.

The hospital system has been losing money for years and has received tens of millions of dollars in public subsidies. After the General Assembly session ended April 9 with no resolution of the system's problems, Johnson and the County Council agreed to use tax dollars to keep the hospitals open through June 2008.

At the time, hospital leaders said they did not think the county's help was conditional.

However, Johnson has long sought Brown's ouster and greater control over the board. Keary said yesterday's action was an attempt to give the public greater say and oversight over the system. He also said that when Dimensions accepted a $5 million cash infusion from the county in February, it agreed that any future help would be contingent on a board shake-up. At that time, the council passed legislation indicating that the board would agree to a restructuring if it accepted any additional tax dollars.

"We are going to hold them to that" agreement, Keary said.

Council spokeswoman Karen D. Campbell, responding for Exum, said the Dimensions Board previously agreed to restructuring. "The county is now asking that they move forward with implementation," she wrote.